Just like you

We just got back from a week-long vacation at a cottage on Lake Michigan and before getting to those pictures, I thought I'd post some pictures and stories updating what was going on before our trip.

Both Drew and Kate continue to adore doing things that Jana and I are doing. The other day Jana was with Kate on the driveway while I was mowing our lawn. Each time I turned the lawn mower to start a new row, Kate would closely watch me and do the same with her toy lawn mower. The thing they've been clamoring to do with Jana is yoga, so one night the three of them put out the yoga mat in our living room and they did some poses. Here are Drew and Kate in downward dog. Nice going! Drew liked this pose, warrior II. He's still working a little on his form :)

Jana and Drew worked on child's pose. Kate decided it was a good time to take a break for a bite of banana. Kate has her priorities right!

Kate has been growing like crazy and continues to thin out. She's still surprisingly average though for her age in both height and weight (a large contrast with Drew). Lest we think she's getting growing up and getting too big, pictures like this remind us of her size. She's still so little!

I think Kate is working on tree pose, but your guess is as good as mine. She showed great enthusiasm for the different simple poses Jana was teaching her and Drew, but sometimes it's hard to figure out what she was doing from the pictures!

Kate also loves helping in the kitchen. As soon as Jana heads into the kitchen, Kate scurries in and pulls up a chair so she can help. In this picture, Kate is helping to cut some orange slices (don't worry, grandmas, with a butter knife!).

Kate loves having her hair done at day care. Jana and I are still learning to do things with her hair. It's completely foreign territory for me. I was fascinated by this hairstyle that Kate came home with one day, although in getting a cute picture I think I missed out on the fact there there are two ponytails back there. It was quite the look. Trust me.

Every night, mom, Drew and Kate climb into Drew's bed for nightly prayers. For the past year or so, it's been Jana or me modeling a prayer for them. Within the past month though, the torch has been passed and Drew leads us each evening in a prayer. He does a fantastic job and we love to hear the things he comes up with from his day that he is thankful for (not always the things we would have said!).

Warm weather has meant lots of work in the yard. Drew and Kate both love gardening tools, with Drew's favorite being his shovel (below). He's got a miniature shovel from Home Depot that's a real shovel (wooden handle, metal end). Drew has been watching how I use it and he's been getting his form down. He looks pretty good, doesn't he?

Kate always finds that gardening is best done in a dress. I might have to work a little on getting her into grubbier clothes.

Jana took this picture when I wasn't looking and loves the symmetry of the two Aupperlee men digging in the backyard. There's certainly a minor resemblance there.

Kate got a trowel and did a nice job digging for me as well. Her favorite was to lift the trowel up and shower herself with dirt. Our bathtub got a workout that night!

Drew took a break in the shade to cool off and "hide" in the plants. It was one of the few times he stopped working and actually looked at the camera.

What big brother Drew does, Kate likes to do too. She also plopped down in the shade for a rest.

After preparing the yard, I had a few yards of bark mulch delivered to our house. The huge pile of mulch elicited wide eyes from Drew and Kate and much excitement at the prospect of helping. Kate, of course, had on her skirt for the project and paired it with her rainboots. Great workwear.

Drew had on his workgloves, his workboots, and was much more appropriately dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. If he was in jeans, he looks like he'd be ready to help much a stall at the farm, doesn't he? Both kids were again fantastically dirty after a little while of helping with mulch. Helping dad with yardwork is lots of fun and lots of DIRTY.

This past Christmas we got a sand and water table from Grandpa John and Grandma Lynn. Having cleared a space in the yard for it, we recently set it up and Drew and Kate have been playing with it almost every day since. I think the idea is to have one half sand and the other water, but it has quickly turned into moving as much sand into the water area as possible, while also taking water and putting it into the sand area. I've taken to calling it the "sandy water" table. Oh yeah, Drew's hat in this picture . . . is my old hat from high school. These sort of hats were in for a brief period of time in high school and the kids just discovered them. Drew loves to wear one. It's not often we get good pictures of Drew where he's doing a semi-nice smile and looking in the direction of the camera, so I have to include this one. While Kate is average in size, Drew continues to be off the charts. He routinely gets mistaken for a six-year-old when we're around town. Drew just finished his first year of preschool and during the school year he grew 2 1/2 inches. He's the tallest person in his class. When watching him with his peers you wonder, "who put that older kid in with those little kids?" Lately, Drew has turned a corner with shyness and has gotten much better about talking to new people and speaking up in large groups. It's been fun to see him open up and let others see what a fascinating little guy he is.

Mom's gone . . . let's go to the fire station

A weekend or two ago, Jana went out of the town and I was home on my own with Drew and Kate. For me, that means trying to find things to do that keep us busy while mom is gone. A top priority for us while Jana was gone was a visit to the fire station to see Uncle Todd. Drew was very excited about going to the fire station again. Kate, on the other hand, was missing mom a little and didn't immediately get enthused about our visit.

What amazing thing was Todd showing us at this point? A hose that he was going to use for washing the fire engine.

After visiting the station several times now, we were due to chip in a little and help wash the fire engine. Kate wasn't into cleaning, but Drew was all about wiping down the fire engine to make it shine.

Drew did a surprisingly good job with his cloth getting the fire engine clean. I may have to put him to work on our cars!

Finally, I was able to coax a smile from my girl. She liked crawling around and "operating" the pump.

Drew got up front and had a turn driving the fire engine.

This was one of Drew and Kate's favorite parts of the visit, sitting on the bench in front of the fire station!

Jana called to check in at this point, and I had to tell her I couldn't talk long because Kate was busy operating the deck gun.

The three Aupperlee firefighters by BC Engine 5. As always, we had a FUN visit to the fire station!

finished bathroom and a newly two-year-old girl

I'm starting this post with a bathroom update. As you may recall, at one point during the height of demolition, it looked like this: Since then, I have completely finished the project, but here are some more pictures of the progress. For the tub surround, I called in a professional with more experience (and better tools) to give me a hand. The two of us worked together to install the tub surround. The most gratifying part of doing it with him was that he did EXACTLY what I would have done at each stage, he just did it a lot better and more efficiently :)

In the picture below, the tub surround is installed and the caulk seals are drying. You can see that there are no bathtub fixtures and still no bathroom sink.

Here is the finished product. In total, I put in a new bathroom medicine cabinet, new bathroom cabinet (on the wall), new bathtub, new tub surround, new sink and vanity, re-installed the toilet, and put in a new subfloor and tile floor. Phew! It was a lot of work, but we're very happy with the results. In case you can't tell on the picture, the walls are a cream color with white trim, the cabinets are black, and the shower curtain is some shade of green (I don't know color names).

I had to get a shot of the toilet as I was pretty proud of taking it out and re-installing it. That was one part of this job that was a piece of cake and went exactly how I planned it. Actually, all the original things I was planning on doing (everything except the bathtub and tub surround), went very smoothly.

The final stamp of approval comes from Drew and Kate enjoying baths in the new tub!!

Lately, there has been a lot of excitement in Spartan country following the Spartans progress through the NCAA tournament. Drew and Kate have frequently been seen in their Spartan apparel. Kate enjoys this jersey that is still oversized at the moment and wears it well with some black tights.

Kate is our crazy sleeper and we love to go into her bedroom at night to see what position she's in. The other night we found her little legs poking right out of her crib. We're wondering how she's going to do in a big girl bed as she is quite the wanderer!

Kate has continued to get more interested in books and just like her brother, she loves to pull out a book and read. I believe this one is Richard Scarry's "What do people do all day."

Today is Kate's 2nd birthday. Happy Birthday Kate!! This past weekend Grandma Sue and Grandpa Bill came to Lansing for a visit and the start of some birthday celebrating. Kate loved her new boots and has been wearing them everywhere.

Drew hasn't been featured much in this post, but he's been doing well. He's not showing off for the camera as much as Kate, so we only get occassional pictures of Drew.

Kate got in on the action too with wearing her firefighter outfit. Drew and Kate love wearing their firefighter stuff all the time. They are quite the firefighters!

These last few pictures were taken today of our official two-year-old Kate. We went out tonight to celebrate her birthday and had a family birthday celebration afterward at home. Kate has been a total joy to parent and we're extremely grateful for her.

what did you do over the weekend?

I'll start with a picture of Kate, but this post isn't about the kids. It's more about what I've been up to lately to provide a good home for them! I can't post though without at least one picture of my girl. Last weekend I started a small bathroom project of replacing the floor and sink. I've done this stuff before, so I thought it would be no big deal. As you can see from the picture below, it ended up being a big deal! I found lots of water damage, ended up calling my dad for help, and we did a complete demolition of the bathroom. In this picture, we've removed the bathtub (with another guy, Jeremy) and all the rotten drywall and all the wet insulation and we're letting everything dry out. We also removed all the remaining tile that was left. The bathroom was empty, all the way down to the floorboards.

This is where the bathtub used to be. It was a little freaky to get to this point (okay, a lot freaky), but we continued one step at a time and started to slowly reconstruct the bathroom.

First, we added back in a new bathtub and then put in the new subfloor and floor. That's pictured in the photo below.

Next, we added back in insulation and began to put up boards for a solid, smooth surface for the tub surround.

After that, I began to work on the edges of where the new tub surround will go, by using drywall mud to smooth the surface.

I also rebuilt all the areas of drywall that we had destroyed, particularly in the corner below the mirror.

Here's a close-up of the bathtub, and this is how we've been using it during this week while I work toward adding a new tub surround.

Finally, here's a picture from tonight. I'm almost done with all the drywall mudding and sanding, so tonight I started priming the walls to see how it would look. It's exciting to be almost done!

Here's a picture of the other end of the bathtub, which is also almost finished. The only major thing left is the tub surround . . . and I'm getting professional help for that part!

It was a pretty crazy weekend, but we've got a functional bathroom again in terms of a bathtub and toilet, and we'll be back to full capacity this weekend. Why is that a big deal? We have one bathroom! Talk about working under pressure! I'm glad though to have everything replaced and when we try to sell our house, we can advertise a bathroom completely remodeled in 2010.

incredible toughness

These first two pictures don't involve Drew and Kate, which was great for Jana and I! We've managed to get out a couple times this winter with just the two of us, and we've particularly enjoyed getting away to snowshoe. We got snowshoes for Christmas, so we don't have to rent anymore and any woods is ours to explore! There aren't many activities that my knee can handle well, but snowshoeing seems to be one it tolerates. We can trek 6-8 miles through heavy snow and I've been fine. That makes snowshoeing one of my favorite activities.

Moving on to more important and exciting things, like pictures of Drew and Kate, here's a picture of Kate straight out of the bath. She continues to get more and more hair, which looks crazy and wild after the bath, but then settles right down as soon as it dries (she gets that from Jana).

Kate loves to ham it up after the bath and I think we're at the tail end of sticking our tongues out at each other. She turns up the cuteness close to bedtime and especially lately, she's been talking more and more in the evening (in sentences and paragraphs!).

Kate continues to love her "pony" from daycare. Our daycare provider likes to do the little girls' hair for them, and Kate loves getting her hair done. She sits very still for it and loves the feel of someone working with her hair. How do I know? So far I've done most of her hairstyling! I'm still learning how to get a nice, tight ponytail (it will probably help when Kate gets more hair to work with).

One evening Drew was having fun pushing Kate around in his dump truck, and I capture the two of them in an action photo. Notice Kate is wearing her boots, which continue to be a favorite. We can tell she's the baby of the family because Drew never got away with wearing his boots in the house!

Kate's quite adventurous. Drew was and remains highly coordinated, but quite careful about what he does. Kate on the other hand, is not as cautious or as coordinated, which has led to incredible toughness :) She can take a licking and keep on ticking. Kate keeps us on our toes!

An extra special day: two "ponies!" What is she doing under that chair? Well, I don't know where she gets this, but just like Drew, Kate loves to clean. She grabbed a washcloth, got down on the floor, and started crawling all over rubbing the floor down. We're not really encouraging her to do this, but I would say we're discouraging it either!!

I think I've mentioned it before, but this is a frequent scene in our living room. It's so much fun to watch them read, especially if it's out loud and both at the same time.

One night we were playing a running game and I captured photos of the kids in action. The first is of Drew running toward me.

The second is Kate having a great time playing along. I think I was balancing the camera with getting tackled by each of them. It was no small feat to capture the photos moments before being impacted by a small child :)

This first video is not much fun to see, but mainly is on here for the audio. Kate has been chattering away in her room lately, and we wanted a video that captured some of the words. I'll translate some of this at some point because she doesn't articulate all that clearly yet on some of her words. Here's a couple of the phrases she uses: "Right here." "Here." "Yay!" "Climb, climb." "I did it!" "Yay Kate!"

This second video shows off Kate's famouse "cheese" smile. You can see her doing it over and over again waiting for me to take a picture. I had fun watching her explore how to use her facial muscles as Drew chimed in the background with his older brother comments.